The New BeePre Pure Speculation Thread

[johnsonad]

I’m excited to hear it and even more excited about the low part count.

[Natural Sound]

Nice to see some of the details coming out. I'd love to hear some listening impressions from the Bottlehead team.

One of my visual observations is that there is tons of room around the input jacks! Interconnect junkies like myself now have lots of room to move around. I really like that.

Is the overall gain lowered in the new design? Often times I feel like I need to dump excessive gain somehow. Getting a few extra dB gain from a phono pre is usually desirable. Excessive gain in a pre amp often is not.

I'm also interested in cost. But I understand that detail probably isn't settled quite yet. I'll be patiently waiting for that.

It's always nice to have something to look forward to. Especially in these trying times. Thanks for your continuous improvements guys.

[Paul Birkeland]

Is the overall gain lowered in the new design? Often times I feel like I need to dump excessive gain somehow. Getting a few extra dB gain from a phono pre is usually desirable. Excessive gain in a pre amp often is not.

It should be slightly lower, but not noticeable.  I need to pop into the workshop to do some measurements at some point, but I would expect the overall gain to be 8dB +/-2dB.  That's about as low as most preamps get.

I'm also interested in cost. But I understand that detail probably isn't settled quite yet. I'll be patiently waiting for that.

I'm working on this.  I am expecting the basic BeePre to be close to the cost of BeePre 1.

-PB

[Paul Birkeland]

If you're jonesing for a BeePre with EML tubes or other slightly-off 300Bs that need a little more filament current, that can now be more easily accommodated with the new filament arrangement.  Trimming it out would be the same procedure used for the Kaiju.

[Alby0521]

Hello,

All is very exiting!!!
When do you expect to release it on the market? 2 weeks, 2 months, 1 year? A ballpark idea?

Thanks.

AB

[Paul Birkeland]

I have another prototype I need to build to get things closer to the final product, then the one after that can be built for the manual shoot.  Tentatively that manual shoot would be in early November, and we would have pricing and ordering available shortly after that.

[jjvornov]

Now I know what my winter Bottlehead kit project will be! I was worried that after the Monamour build, I was done. This is exciting as the BeePre 1 is an amazing preamp as it is, but having the buzz and microphonic fixed is worth building a new one.

[RPMac]

With the new op points, will the 6A3 still be an option?

[Paul Birkeland]

With the new op points, will the 6A3 still be an option?

A mild modification will allow this (jumpering across a few resistors with pieces of wire).

[RPMac]

A mild modification will allow this (jumpering across a few resistors with pieces of wire).

Can it be safely done using a switch?

[Paul Joppa]

How safe is safe enough?

If it's a switch, then it's easy to accidentally put 6.3vDC on a 300B filament, which is enough to damage the 300B.

[Paul Birkeland]

I am 100% in agreement with PJ.  I've never met someone with a piece of tube gear that had a filament voltage switch who hadn't destroyed either tubes or the amp itself.

[RPMac]

Thank you for your answers, that’s why I asked.

[triode]

I am 100% in agreement with PJ.  I've never met someone with a piece of tube gear that had a filament voltage switch who hadn't destroyed either tubes or the amp itself.

Oops, I just finish installing a filament switch in my Foreplay III to accomodate both 12AU7 and 6CG7

[pboser]

I have to admit that I have cooked some tubes on my tube tester by not checking the filament switch.